Ask the Swan Specialist

Concerns about warts on swan foot

By:Katy
Date: 14 August 2015

We had two swans, a male and female, and just recently lost the female. We took her to the emergency vet, but it was too late. They weren't able to tell us the cause of death so we are now overly concerned about the male swan. The female swan's feet did not look good to us when we had her out of the water and she had a pinkish look to some of her feathers. She ate that morning when we fed her and we had an event that afternoon and when we returned is when we saw she had declined drastically.Even though he looks and acts very healthy, we don't know enough about them to know what the normal underside of their foot should look like. I have attached a picture taken yesterday. Could you tell us if they look normal, or if anything looks abnormal. I guess my concern is the wart like places on his foot.

We live in Missouri near St. Louis and the swans have an approximately 4 acre lake all to themselves. The lake is man-made and fed by rainwater.